Saturday, 18 July 2009
Run of Fiat Yamaha riders on front row in 2009 extends to nine.
Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo duked it out to be crowned the king of qualifying once more in Sachsenring, taking a one-two at the German track for the Alice Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland. It is the sixth time that the two have shared the front row in 2009, and the seventh time that either of the two has taken pole position.
It was Rossi’s turn to take pole position, his first at the venue in his MotoGP career. In doing so he knocked Fiat Yamaha teammate Lorenzo down to second on the grid, and was delighted to be leading the attack.
“I’m really happy for this pole because it means I’ve already got more than in the whole of last year!” beamed the Italian. “Getting the pole position here is very important for the race because it’s such a hard place to overtake, so I’m really happy. We’ve done some good work today and my team has done a great job to set-up the bike. We’ve made a few small modifications, which have improved the feeling for me and I felt very confident today despite the bad conditions.”
Of the two rivals, Rossi is certainly in the best shape. Lorenzo had a tough Friday and had to face the rain whilst already sore from a collarbone and ankle injury, but rose to the top with a reinvigorated performance on Saturday after putting fears of another fall to the back of his mind.
“Yesterday I was quite worried about my injuries but I am happy to say that today I feel a lot better and I was able to ride much more strongly and brake much later,” said the Spaniard, who leads the BMW M Award competition for qualifying results. “I was really fast in the dry this morning and then this afternoon I did a lot of consistent laps, improving all the time, which is very good because often I struggle in the wet. At the end it was very easy to crash so I didn’t want to push too much or take too many chances, it was important to be careful!”
Either Rossi or Lorenzo have won five of the eight races held to date in 2009.
0 comments:
Post a Comment